This is the former location of the blog of the Andrew Wood Acting Studio in Los Angeles.. The blog is now located at http://www.andrewwoodla.com/blog. This old location has been left in place as an archive.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Some of you know I harbor a special fondness for the Scottish indie pop band Belle and Sebastian. I used to mention it more in the class than I have of late, but I actually have a B&S logo tattoed on my left shoulder. They have been important to me for a long time. I am looking forward to seeing them in concert her in SF March 21.

Recently NPR did an interview with the leader of the band, Stuart Murdoch. There is a link above to a screen (actually the title of this entry is the link: "worth listening to"") where you can click to hear the interview or read a trancscript. Murdoch is an incredibly thoughtful guy, and a great artist. I would say there is something Chekhovian about his way of seeing and rendering things. He talks about how he started the band as he pulled out of a prolonged struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and he also talks about how he is becoming increasingly open in his music about his spirituality and his religious feeling. In session 1 of the Monday night class, I always make sure that Stanislavsky's characterization of acting as the birth of the soul through art gets mentioned. The more I work with the technique, the more I see how fitting this characterization of acting is, so I was very moved to hear Murdoch talking in this way. Belle and Sebastian were very important to me in the years before I moved out to CA and kind of pulled out of a rut myself, so it was really interesting to hear him talk about this. So you might want to give it a listen.